Investigators: Most data on drugs never available

More than half of all the data collected in safety and efficacy trials never see the light of day, according to a survey of the literature. And the absence of that clinical trial data amounts to “scientific misconduct” on the part of new drug developers.

Analyzing the clinical data available on 90 drugs approved between 1998 and 2000, researchers found that only 43 percent of the data had been published within five years of the drugs’ introduction. In one case, no supporting data was available. And the absence of publicly-available data, say the investigators, endangers the public and slows new research work.

“Regardless of the cause, publication bias harms the public good by impairing the ability of clinicians and patients to make informed clinical decisions, and the ability of scientists to design safer and more efficient trials based on past findings,” the authors wrote. “Publication bias can thus be considered a form of scientific misconduct.”